


The Space Between

by naive_wanderer



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-21
Updated: 2009-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naive_wanderer/pseuds/naive_wanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phoenix, Iris, and a moment of clarification.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the PW Kink Meme AGES ago (almost a year?), but I didn't realize I'd never posted it here! I can't remember the prompt for it now, unfortunately.

  
In the weeks after Iris was released from prison, Phoenix went to visit her at her temple.

It wasn’t entirely his own decision; Maya had become determined to finish her spiritual training at Hazakura temple despite the tragedy that had occurred there (or, Phoenix suspected, because of it; it was the place her mother had died, after all), and Pearl had confessed meekly that she wanted to know more about her before-then unknown sister. That, topped off with Phoenix’s own conflicted desire to settle the past, drove him to these visits. They sat around and chatted, mostly, ate meals together and skirted around their shared history.

The timidity was not unusual, then, but something about the way Iris sat at the low dinner table made Phoenix even more uncomfortable. Iris’s gaze was somehow dimmer this time around, clouded over with memory; her dark hair startlingly contrasted against pale skin, devoid of color, like the black-and-white crime photographs Phoenix pored over in court, and just as eerie to see. Even the air around her seemed dry and tinted with something old and almost-forgotten; Phoenix was familiar with it. She had come to a conclusion since they’d last met, and was going to stand firm. He thought, maybe, this would be the last time he would visit.

“You know,” said Iris, her voice no louder than a murmur, “you are one of two people I have ever cared so strongly for.” She twirled her spoon around in her soup, eyes averted. Somewhere else in Hazakura temple, thought Phoenix absently, Maya was standing under a waterfall. “I - I didn’t know if you… I wanted you to know that.”

Phoenix felt himself nod dumbly; Iris favored him with a small smile, a flash of her eyes, as though she’d respected his exact response. Hearing those words meant a great deal coming from her, but….

The silence between them was even more awkward than normal. Phoenix didn’t know how to respond to her without lying. It had been five years since he’d been close to her; five years, and he should have resolved that memory by now, but he hadn’t. There had been many that he loved just as fiercely after her, before had even known her…. When Phoenix was honest with himself, he knew she stood out in his mind now only for her beauty and her part in shaping his current life. He had loved her very much, there was no mistaking it, but he had forced himself, years ago, to let it fade. Even after meeting her again and finding her to be good, finding that his judgment of her hadn’t been so horribly wrong… the taste of deception, of betrayal, still lingered sourly on his tongue. He wasn’t sure how he could explain to her that that bitterness had played such a large part in shaping the person he was now.

Iris sipped at her dinner; Phoenix poked at a potato floating in his broth and tried to think of something to lighten the mood. He owed her a great deal, after all. But what came out of his mouth instead was, “who was the other?”

Iris lifted her head, meeting his eyes without hesitation. _Those_ , thought Phoenix, _are the eyes I remembered_ , even though they were no longer so appealing. “Dahlia,” she told him, and he could _feel,_ rather than hear,her intensity. Her remorse. Phoenix suddenly found it very hard to speak.

“Do you…” he finally managed, throat tight. “Do you regret… ‘betraying’ her?”

A plethora of emotions flashed quickly across Iris’s face. Phoenix felt his heart pound with a silent plea, a mad desire to make her understand. _We_ were the ones that were betrayed. Not Dahlia. _You and me_.

“…No,” she answered, finally, and bent her head to finish off her meal. Phoenix thought he could see her posture, tense with the oddness of their meetings and the regret of her past devotion, finally relax. She looked up, and this time whatever passed between them was real enough that he knew they would finally be able to say ‘good-bye.’ The flip of Iris’s hand as she brushed her hair back from her face was eerily like Dahlia, but the hair was dark, and her voice, when she spoke again, was quiet and sincere. “And I never will.”

 


End file.
